


Nor Any More of Heaven or Hell Than There Is Now

by AstroGirl



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M, Poetry, Post-Canon, Walt Whitman - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22687654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: Aziraphale reads Walt Whitman for the first time in a very long while.  It has an effect on him.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37
Collections: Genprompt Bingo Round 17





	Nor Any More of Heaven or Hell Than There Is Now

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Gen Prompt Bingo, for the prompt "A Moment of Understanding/Clarity." It's mainly the result of me having recently binged the entire back catalog of the Memory Palace podcast. On the eve of the 2016 US election, they broke with their usual format and instead presented a full-length reading of "Song of Myself." I'd forgotten just how powerful that poem was, and how much it resonated with me. And, being in the throes of full-fledged _Good Omens_ obsession, I couldn't not imagine Aziraphale reading it. So here we are. (I suspect that if there is a poetry equivalent of songfic, this might be it. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that.)

It literally hits Aziraphale on the head.

His books aren't supposed to be shelved in such a way that one good accidental jostle will send any of them crashing down onto an unsuspecting angel's head, but someone has removed this one from its proper place and balanced it precariously on the edge of a shelf. Possibly a customer, in which case the transgression is inexcusable and unforgivable. More likely Crowley, in which case... Well, in which case, he'll let it go. Crowley doesn't like to let on that he sometimes enjoys spending idle moments perusing Aziraphale's collection, so Aziraphale pretends to ignore all the evidence that he does so. It would hardly do, would it, to have him become embarrassed and stop.

Rubbing his head and sparing a quick miracle to dispel the minor but annoying pain of a bruised scalp, Aziraphale bends to retrieve the book. He runs expert eyes and fingers across the covers and the binding, riffles carefully through the pages. All mercifully undamaged, or he might have had to have words with Crowley about it, after all.

Satisfied that the volume has survived contact with his skull, Aziraphale pauses to consider it. It's an early edition of _Leaves of Grass_. Goodness, it's been a long time since he's read this one. He opens it again, the pages parting naturally at the beginning of "Song of Myself."

Aziraphale smiles thoughtfully. He'd never been certain what to make of that one. It had seemed to him at the time equal parts beautiful and blasphemous, an uncomfortable combination for an angel. 

He met the poet himself, once. He'd seemed beautiful and blasphemous, too, in his own hearty way. Aziraphale had meant to ask him to sign this volume, but had somehow missed the chance. He'd kept thinking that surely he'd make it back to America someday, would find him and prevail upon him for an autograph then. But by the next time he'd thought of it decades had passed, and the opportunity was gone. 

He begins to close the book, intending to return it to its proper place, but finds himself hesitating. Walt Whitman is hardly Agnes Nutter, but he's become more sensitive of late to the thought that books might be attempting to tell him something.

So, instead, he sits down to read.

He expects, perhaps, to find that the poem makes him feel nostalgic. Or disturbed. Or simply appreciative of a talented human's way with words.

He does not expect to find himself weeping.

He had forgotten what this poem was, this celebration of the world, of living humanity in all its embodied complexity, in all its beauty and poignancy and ordinariness.

_I have said that the soul is not more than the body,_   
_And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,_   
_And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is,_   
_And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud,_   
_And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth,_   
_And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times,_   
_And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero,_   
_And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel’d universe,_   
_And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes._

He weeps because this is the world. Because humans, these limited, created, mortal things are capable of _this_. This profound thing, this powerful, blazing declaration of their individuality and their connection to the world in the face of all their transience and their limited understanding.

And he was almost willing to let it end. To let _them_ end.

It doesn't bear thinking about. And yet, he can't seem to stop.

He goes back to the beginning, and reads it all again.

_My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,_   
_Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,_   
_I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,_   
_Hoping to cease not till death._

It's such a _human_ thing. So profoundly about _being_ human, a condition he can only observe from the outside, only begin to understand. And yet, it speaks to him, too, somehow. As if he is also included in this, this messy, profound, earthy, Earthly experience.

And perhaps he is. This is what he's chosen, after all. The world. He's chosen to cast his lot in with humanity. To be of Earth, rather than Heaven. To cherish it, to experience it with them.

How is it that Whitman understood better than Aziraphale that one need not choose between Heaven and Hell, as if those were the only options? That one could give up guarding the gates in favor of nurturing the garden itself?

_What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?_   
_Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent,_   
_My gait is no fault-finder’s or rejecter’s gait,_   
_I moisten the roots of all that has grown._

And then there is this. This, which he keeps coming back to:

_I believe in the flesh and the appetites,_   
_Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle._

_Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from,_   
_The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,_   
_This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds._

It stirs something in him. Something unfamiliar, or perhaps something familiar and long-repressed. Some desire, to touch as humans touch.

Gently, Aziraphale closes the book. He shuts his eyes for a moment, draws in a breath. Holds in his lungs air that has been breathed in and out by humanity, from the beginning of the world. Their world, their air. And his, too. His to enjoy. He does not need to feel guilty for that. It does not make him unholy.

He stands. Reverently, he returns the book to its proper place on the shelf, the poet's words still echoing in his mind.

_This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of hair,_   
_This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning,_   
_This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,_   
_This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again._

And he goes to look for Crowley. He thinks, perhaps, there is poetry they might make together.


End file.
